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Friday, April 30, 2010

Anyone that has paid any amount of attention to the Marco Rubio / Charlie Crist race for the Republican Gubanatorial race in Florida over the past few months had to see this one coming. With Rubio pounding Crist in polls and fundraising, Crist announced that he will run as an Independent. I guess this is Crist's answer to what job or career he will consider after he loses in the primary: He has no idea.

Who wouldn't love to be a state level politician (some days)? Great benefits and free travel across your state are two good reasons. And just about how everyone thinks your important. Everyone needs something from you. But then there are the drawbacks. You have to fight for your job every two to four years. For 11 months of your last year in office, you spend more time campaigning that actually doing the job you were voted to do. Every little mispoken word or every line that could be taken out of context is taken out of context and you spend two weeks doing job-saving crisis prevention. But hey, if being a politician is something you really want to do, then go for it.

But, please keep these things in mind, because it seems that Mr. Crist has forgotten them.1. You are elected. One day, one year, one election, you will lose. It's inevetible. Unless you are caught doing something really stupid, like, say, cheating on your wife with a call-girl or you have an Argentinian mistress. Then of course, you will be asked to leave office before the election. And politicians hate that.

2. This is not a career. I wish that every politically affiliated post in every state had term limits, but alas, they do not. When you begin feeling that the citizenry does not want you in office, but you have done a fairly good job by them, take that as a sign to leave office with your dignity intact. Right now, Crist is losing to Rubio by about 20 points in polls (here), although Rasmussen has Rubio leading a 3-way race by 7 points. When you feel yourself about to get voted out of office, leave gracefully. Maybe in 20 years, they'll name a school or library after you. If you keep trying to hold on to your job like the Japanese fighting for Iwo Jima, then people start to think of you as a big jerk that won't go away. I call it "I don't know what else to do syndrome." They have spent their whole life climbing the political peak, and they have reached the summit, and they don't want to go back down. It's similar to squatter's rights, "I've been here for so long, it's mine, and I ain't givin' it up."

With either candidate holding sizeable leads over Democratic candidate Meek, the GOP primary is the big race. Crist has been battling up hill for quite some time, and it's sad to see him continuing to cling to his job, despite the writing on the wall.

Thursday, April 29, 2010

I hope you enjoyed your 15 minutes. As an elected official for the state of Michigan, you carried yourself in a totally unprofessional way in your interrogation of Goldman Sachs executives. Granted, I know you were reading verbatim their inter-office emails. But you didn't have to. You could have self-censored. But you chose a different route. Shock and awe, right? Your little tirade wouldn't have made it on PBS or C-SPAN, two public broadcast networks. Radio and TV networks had to censor the tape before it was aired. Is that really something you want to be remembered for?

There are plenty of other ways for you to make your point. And for the record, I think Goldman Sachs probably participated in practices that ended up hurting their clients. If you really wanted to get to the bottom of the well, it is not productive to berate someone with silly questions that you simply want answered like this, "Yep, we lied, lied, and lied some more. And we made millions along the way."

Even in a court of law, a judge would have asked you to tone down the language. But no, in the highest level of government, you had to use language that would have gotten a middle schooler kicked out of school. I hope you feel good about yourself this morning. And for your sake, I hope emails from you with derogatory language do not get leaked out. After all, they are kept on government servers.

Monday, April 26, 2010

In the race for Democratic Primary for NC Senate District 3, there are some interesting developments. Clark Jenkins is the incumbent, and is a white farmer. He may call himself a businessman. But he’s a farmer. The other lead candidate is Frankie Bourdeaux, a black businessman. He and his wife own a mental health clinic. I heard on the radio this morning Mr. Bourdeaux is putting out a robo-call asking black Democrats to turn out in good numbers for the Democratic primary in May. This should be embarrassing for the Democratic Party. Basically, it’s the “help a brotha out” mentality.If Bourdeaux really wants to win the election for valid reasons, he needs to get his message out to the voters and not ask black people to vote for the black candidate. Local Democratic leaders need to call Bourdeaux to the carpet on this. I’m not supporting either candidate, but I imagine there would be quite a controversy if people opposed to Bourdeaux basically accused him of winning only because of his skin color. And it would not even be that far-fetched of an argument considering this new bit of information.

And if you do not think anything is wrong with this, what do you think would happen if Clark Jenkins asked all the white people to vote for him? He would not even be allowed to come back home. He would not have to worry about the local media. The national media would be camped outside his home. It is still racism, no matter how you color it. Racism is the same either way, and Mr. Bourdeaux should be ashamed of himself.

Even Mr. Bourdeaux's wife has made similar statements. The Rocky Mount Telegram quoted her, At the end of his remarks, Bordeaux’s wife, Faye, asked the crowd to consider her husband’s background, race and affinity for the residents of District 3 before they go to vote.“This is a 58 percent minority district,” Faye Bordeaux said. “Why can’t we have someone in that seat who is qualified to do the job and who also looks and sounds like the people he represents?”

What she failed to bring up is how this is a 58% minority district. The district includes Martin, Edgecombe, and parts of Pitt, Bertie, Tyrrell, and Washington counties. The district lines are drawn up to elect a black person. Instead of giving the most populated county in the east (Pitt) it's own senate representative, the county is divided up, giving parts of it to district 3, and parts to district 5. Even the racial breakdown of the counties doesn't equal 58%. Pitt county is only 33% black; Martin is 45%; Edgecombe is 57%; Washington is 49%; Tyrrell is 39%; Bertie is 62%.

The Bourdeaux's should think about why they are running for office, and should plan on representing everyone in their district if elected, not just black people.